This invention relates generally to vehicles and more particularly to air braking systems.
Air brakes are used in a wide variety of vehicles from semi-trucks to school buses. Air brakes are extremely useful and have been historically proven to be very effective. Generally in operation, a brake chamber is pressurized to force a push-rod forward to engage the braking mechanism (i.e. brake shoes or disc brakes) to engage the wheel drum.
While the mechanism works most of the time, as the brakes wear, the push-rod must move further to effectuate proper engagement. At some point though, the brake chamber's maximum range of motion is reached and the brake does not engage properly.
For this reason, a variety of safety regulations have-been enacted which either require or suggest that the operator of the vehicle inspect the brake chamber's actual range of motion to make sure that the limit of effectiveness has not been reached; and if the range of motion is nearing its limit, to adjust the slack adjuster so that the brake chamber does not have to move as far to accomplish the brake engagement.
This requires the operator to crawl under the vehicle and visually inspect the brake chamber push-rod adjustment. Because of the inconvenience, many operators do not perform the inspection on a regular basis.
It is clear that there is a significant need for a monitoring system which operates automatically and is monitored from inside the vehicle, eliminating the need for the operator to crawl under the vehicle.